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1 .RN 1
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2
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3 .H0 "Introduction
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4 .P
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5 This chapter introduces MH, its history, concepts and how it is used.
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6 Then, it describes nmh's code base and community to give the reader
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7 a better understanding of the state from which mmh started off.
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8 Further more, this chapter lists the motivation and goals of the mmh project.
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9 This chapter introduces MH, nmh and mmh to the reader and outlines
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10 the mmh project itself.
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11
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12
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13 .H1 "MH \(en the Mail Handler
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14 .P
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15 MH is an electronic mail system, originating in the RAND Corporation.
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16 Most important for this thesis is that MH defines a mail handling concept.
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17 In fact, MH had started as a design proposal, not as an implementation,
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18 and in spirit it had remained this way. This is similar to Unix, which
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19 influenced the world more in being a set of system design concepts
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20 than in being a specific software product.
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21 These ideas behind Unix are summarized in the \fIUnix philosophy\fP.
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22 MH follows this philosophy.
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23
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24 .U2 "History
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25 .P
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26 MH is an electronic mail system, originating in the RAND Corporation.
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27 In 1977 at RAND Corporation, Norman Shapiro and Stockton Gaines
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28 had proposed the design
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29 of a new mail handling system, called ``Mail Handler'' (MH),
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30 to superseed RAND's old monolithic ``Mail System'' (MS).
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31 Two years later, in 1979, Bruce Borden took the proposal and implemented a
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32 prototype of MH.
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33 Before the prototype had been available, the concept was
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34 believed to be practically unusable because of being too slow.
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35 But the prototype proved successful and replaced MS thereafter.
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36 In replacing MS, MH became an all-in-one mail system.
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37 .P
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38 A decade later, the University of California at Irvine had started to use MH.
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39 They also took over its development and pushed MH forward.
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40 This was the time when the Internet appeared, UCB implemented
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41 the TCP/IP stack, and Allman wrote Sendmail.
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42 MH was extended as emailing got more features.
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43 The development of MH was closely related to the development of email
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44 RFCs. In the advent of MIME, MH was the first implementation of this new
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45 email standard.
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46 .P
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47 In the nineties, MH had been moved into the public domain, making it
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48 attractive to Free Software developers.
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49 The Internet had started to become popular and in 1997,
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50 Richard Coleman initiated the ``New Mail Handler'' (nmh) project,
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51 a fork of MH, based on the \fILBL changes\fP by Van Jacobson, Mike Karels
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52 and Craig Leres.
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53 Colman intended to modernize MH and improve its portability and
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54 MIME handling capabilities.
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55 This should be done openly within the Internet community.
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56 The development of MH stopped soon after the development of nmh had started.
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57 Today, nmh almost completely replaced the original MH.
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58
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59 .U2 "Concepts
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60 .P
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61 MH is a toolchest, modelled after the Unix toolchest. It consists of a
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62 set of tools, each covering a specific task of email handling.
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63 The programs
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64 operate on a common mail storage. The specific format of the mail storage
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65 characterizes MH in the same way like the format of the file system
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66 characterizes Unix.
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67 .P
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68 The mail storage consists of \fImail folders\fP (directories) and
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69 \fPmessages\fP (regular files).
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70 Each message is stored in a separate file in the format it had been
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71 received (i.e. transfer format). The files are named with ascending numbers
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72 in each folder.
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73 .P
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74 MH tools maintain a \fIcontext\fP, which includes
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75 the current mail folder and current message.
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76 Processes in Unix have a similar context, containing the current working
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77 directory, for instance. In contrast, the process context is maintained
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78 by the Unix kernel automatically, whereas MH tools need to maintain the MH
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79 context themselves.
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80 The user can have one MH context or multiple ones, he can even share it
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81 with other users.
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82 .P
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83 Messages can have symbolic names. These can be automatically updated
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84 position names like being the next or the last message,
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85 or user-settable group names for arbitrary sets of messages.
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86 These names are called sequences.
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87 Sequences can be bound to the folder or to the context.
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88 .P
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89 New MH tools are built out of or on top of existing ones easily \(en
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90 a property common to toolchests.
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91 Multiple versions of the same command with different default values
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92 are created very easily. This provides shortcuts and tayloring.
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93 Form templates for new messages or for replies are easily exchangable.
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94 Generally, output is adjustable with format files.
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95 .P
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96 The configuration is stored in a file that is called the user's \fIprofile\fP.
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97 MH encourages the user to taylor and automate the mail handling.
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98 Almost every part of the system can be adjusted to personal preference.
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99 The system is well scriptable and extendable.
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100 As the MH toolchest was modelled after the Unix toolchest, the
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101 properties of the latter apply to the former as well.
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102
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103 .U2 "Versions
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104 .P
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105 Three versions of MH are available today:
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106 .IP "Old MH"
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107 .br
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108 In most cases this version had been replaced by nmh,
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109 but some systems might still provide old MH.
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110 The main reasons to still use old MH are historical reasons.
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111 MH provides hardly any benefits over nmh.
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112 The development of old MH has stopped after the 6.8.4 release in
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113 February 1996.
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114 .IP nmh
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115 .br
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116 The most widespread version of MH was forked off version 6.8.3 in December
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117 1996. It is based on the \fILBL changes\fP.
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118 Backward-compatibility to old MH is provided by having new featues deactivated
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119 by default. In consequence, the user needs to activate them explicitely to
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120 be able to use them.
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121 Throughout the previous years, the work on nmh was mostly maintenance work.
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122 Development revived in December 2011 and stayed busy since then.
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123 .IP mmh
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124 .br
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125 This descendent of nmh is the subject of this thesis.
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126 It had started as an experimental version, but became de facto a fork.
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127
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128 .U2 "Example Session
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129 .P
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130 Following is an example mail handling session with mmh.
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131 It should be mostly compatible with nmh and old MH.
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132 Details might vary but the look'n'feel is the same.
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133 .DS
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134 $ \f(CBinc\fP
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135 Incorporating new mail into inbox...
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136
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137 1+ 2012-05-16 11:16 meillo@dream.home Hello
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138 2 2012-05-16 11:17 meillo@dream.home book
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139
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140 $ \f(CBshow\fP
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141 Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 11:16:00 +0200
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142 To: meillo
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143 From: <meillo@dream.home.schnalke.org>
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144 Subject: Hello
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145
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146 part text/plain 13
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147 mmh is great
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148
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149 $ \f(CBnext\fP
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150 Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 11:17:24 +0200
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151 To: meillo
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152 From: <meillo@dream.home.schnalke.org>
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153 Subject: book
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154
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155 part text/plain 79
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156 Hello meillo,
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157
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158 have a look at the ``Daemon book''. You need to read that!
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159
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160 foo
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161
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162 $ \f(CBrmm 1\fP
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163
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164 $ \f(CBscan\fP
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165 2+ 2012-05-16 11:17 meillo@dream.home book
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166
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167 $
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168 .DE
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169
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170
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171 .H1 "nmh: Code and Community
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172 .P
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173 In order to understand the state, goals and dynamics of a project,
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174 one needs to know its history. MH predates the Internet,
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175 it comes from times before networking was universal,
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176 times when emailing was small, short and simple.
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177 Then it grew, spread and adopted to the changes email went through.
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178 The core-concepts, however, remained the same.
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179 During the 80s a small group of students at the University of
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180 California, actively worked on MH. They added features and optimized,
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181 like it is common for scientific work. This is still in pre-ANSI C
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182 times. The source code contains many ancient parts. Code constructs
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183 specific to BSD or hardware of that time are usual.
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184 .P
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185 Nmh started eight years after the ANSI C standard had been
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186 established. A more modern coding style entered the code base. Still
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187 a part of the developers come from ``the old days''. The developer
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188 base became more diverse and thus the code had different style.
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189 Programming practices
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190 from different decades merged into the project. Different coding
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191 styles came together. It appears as if multiple peers added code
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192 parts, resulting in a conclomeration rather than a homogenic
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193 of-one-cast mail system. Still, the basic concepts hold it together.
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194 They were mostly untouched throughout the years.
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195 .P
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196 Although, at the surface, nmh is a toolchest, meaning a collection
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197 of completely modularized small programs, on the source code level,
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198 it is much more interweaved. Parts of the basic functions are
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199 collected in a MH standard library, which is good, but often
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200 separate functions are compiled into programs, for effiency reasons.
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201 This lead to intricate innards.
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202 The advent of MIME rose the complexity of email by a magnitude. This
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203 is visible in nmh. The MIME-related parts are the most complex ones.
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204 It's also visible that MIME support had been added on top of the
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205 old MH later. The MH style made this easily possible, but it
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206 also lead to duplicated functions (e.g. \fLshow\fP, \fLmhshow\fP)
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207 and had not been thoroughly included into the concepts (e.g. the
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208 user-visible access to whole messages and MIME parts are inherently
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209 different).
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210 .P
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211 For compatibility's sake, it is a common understanding to have the
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212 default settings to be compatible, requiring any new feature to be
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213 explicitely enabled. This puts a burden on new users, because nmh
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214 out-of-the-box keeps staying in the same ancient style, where users
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215 usually want to have it practical for modern emailing.
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216 But of course, this depends on if nmh is seen to be a front-end or a
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217 back-end.
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218
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219
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220 .H1 "mmh
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221 .P
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222 I started to work on my experimental version in Fall 2011.
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223 In December, when I announced my work on the nmh-workers mailing list,
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224 .[
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225 nmh-workers mmh announce december
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226 .]
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227 the activity in nmh rose heavily.
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228 Suddently the community started to move.
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229 This movement was pushed much by Paul Vixie's ``edginess'' message.
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230 .[
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231 nmh-workers vixie edginess
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232 .]
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233 After long years of much stagnation, nmh became actively developed again.
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234 Hence, while I was working on mmh, the community was working on nmh,
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235 in parallel.
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236
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237 .U2 Naming
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238 .P
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239 The name \fImmh\fP stands for \fImeillo's mail handler\fP,
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240 because mmh is my own version of MH.
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241 (My login name is \fImeillo\fP.)
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242 The project follows my personal considerations and preferences.
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243 By calling it a personal project, I don't need to justify my decisions,
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244 though, still I do.
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245 This enabled me to follow my vision staightly and thus produce
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246 a result of greater pureness.
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247 This project model was inspired by the window manager \fIdwm\fP,
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248 which is Anselm Garbe's personal window manager \(en
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249 targeted to satisfy Garbe's personal needs whenever conflicts appear.
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250 dwm had remained much more focused on its original goals,
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251 whereas its community-driven predecessor \fIwmii\fP had
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252 grown large and lost it's leanness.
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253 This should not happen to mmh.
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254 .P
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255 mmh can also stand for \fImodern mail handler\fP, and this is
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256 the variant chosen as titel for this document. One main focus of the
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257 project was to modernize nmh. Another main goal is resembled in the
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258 name \fIminimized mail handler\fP: Drop any parts that don't add
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259 to the main task of mmh, being a MUA.
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260 .P
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261 It should also be noted that \fLstrcmp("mmh","nmh")<0\fP is true.
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262 Although mmh bases on nmh, it is likely seen as a step backward.
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263 I agree.
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264 However, this step backward actually is a step forward,
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265 although in another direction.
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266
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267 .U2 "Motivation
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268 .P
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269 The mmh project is motivated by deficites of nmh and
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270 my wish for general changes, combined
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271 with the nmh community's reluctancy to change.
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272 .P
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273 nmh hadn't adjusted to modern emailing needs well enough.
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274 The default setup was completely unusable for modern emailing.
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275 Too much setup work was required.
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276 Several modern features were already available but the community
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277 didn't wanted to have them as default.
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278 .P
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279 In my eyes, the concepts could be exploited even better and
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280 the style of the tools could be improved. Both would would simplify
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281 and generalize the system, providing cleaner interfaces and more
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282 software leverage, at the same time.
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283 .P
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284 In providing several parts of an email system, nmh would hardly
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285 be able to compete with the large specialized projects that focus
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286 on only one of the components. Concentrating all development power
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287 on the most unique part of nmh and giving the user the choice to
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288 pick his prefered set of the other mail components would be the better
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289 approach in my eyes.
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290 Today's pre-packaged software components encourage this approach.
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291
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292 .U2 "Why it is worth it
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293 .P
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294 MH is the most important of very few command line toolchest email systems.
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295 (There's also \fIim\fP by Tatsuya Kinoshita,
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296 which operates on an MH mail storage.)
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297 Toolchests are powerful because they can be perfectly automated and
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meillo@43
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298 extended. Toolchests are good back-ends for various sorts of front-ends.
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299 They allow multiple front-ends for different special needs
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meillo@43
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300 to be implemented quickly and withough internal knowledge on emailing.
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meillo@43
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301 Further more, toolchests are much better to maintain than large monolithic
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meillo@43
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302 programs.
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meillo@43
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303 As there are few toolchests for emailing and MH-like ones are the most
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meillo@43
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304 popular amoung them, they should be developed further to keep their
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meillo@43
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305 conceptional elegance and unique scripting qualities available to users.
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meillo@43
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306 mmh will create a modern and convenient entry point for new, interested
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meillo@43
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307 users to MH-like systems.
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308 .P
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meillo@43
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309 It's worthwhile to fork nmh for the development of mmh, because
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310 the two projects focus on different goals and differ in fundamental questions.
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311 The nmh community's reluctance to change conflicts
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312 with my strong will to change.
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313 In developing a separate experimental version new approaches can
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meillo@43
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314 easily be tried out without the need to discuss changes beforehand.
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meillo@43
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315 In fact, revolutionary changes are hardly possible otherwise.
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meillo@43
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316 By forking nmh, mmh will likelier bring fresh air into the field of
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meillo@43
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317 MH-like mail systems than without forking.
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meillo@43
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318 Fresh air is good to reactivate a matured project.
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319 .P
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meillo@43
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320 These reasons support the decision to start mmh as a fork of nmh.
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meillo@43
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321 Of course, the results of the mmh project shall improve nmh, in the end.
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meillo@27
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322
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meillo@27
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323 .U2 "Target Field
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324 .P
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meillo@43
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325 The target user of mmh likes Unix and its philosophy.
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meillo@27
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326 He likes to use programs that are conceptionally appealing.
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meillo@27
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327 He's familiar with the command line and enjoys its power.
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meillo@27
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328 He is at least capable of shell scripting and wants to improve his
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meillo@27
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329 productivity by scripting the mail system.
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meillo@43
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330 He naturally uses modern email features, like attachments,
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meillo@43
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331 non-ASCII text, and digital cryptrography.
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meillo@43
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332 He is able to setup email system components besides mmh,
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meillo@43
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333 and actually likes the choice to pick the ones he preferes.
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meillo@43
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334 He has a reasonably modern system that complies to standards,
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meillo@43
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335 like POSIX and ANSI C.
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meillo@27
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336 .P
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meillo@43
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337 XXX common scenarios?
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meillo@27
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338
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meillo@27
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339 .U2 "The Vision
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meillo@8
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340 .P
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meillo@8
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341 The general goals of the mmh project are the following:
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meillo@8
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342 .BU
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meillo@8
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343 I believe that mmh should be perfectly suited for modern emailing,
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meillo@8
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344 out-of-the-box.
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meillo@8
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345 .BU
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meillo@8
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346 I care less about compatibility and more about conceptionally elegant
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meillo@8
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347 approaches.
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meillo@8
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348 .BU
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meillo@8
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349 I care for general, clear, and simple concepts.
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meillo@8
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350 .BU
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meillo@8
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351 I like to create an of-one-style email system. It should feel like
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meillo@8
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352 cast as one.
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meillo@8
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353 .BU
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meillo@8
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354 I plan to remove any optimizations that rises obscurity, unless it
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meillo@8
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355 appears to be neccessary to make mmh usable at all.
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meillo@8
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356
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meillo@27
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357 .U2 "Work to do
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meillo@8
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358 .BU
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meillo@27
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359 Remove the MTA and MRA facilities. Mmh shall concentrate on the MUA
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meillo@8
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360 task. Mail shall enter mmh's mail storage via the system mail drop
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meillo@8
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361 and it shall leave mmh via the local \fLsendmail\fP command.
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meillo@8
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362 .BU
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meillo@8
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363 Remove any further functions that are not related to mmh's main task.
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meillo@8
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364 Bulletin board support is on example. Also remove support for ancient
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meillo@8
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365 technologies, like hardcopy terminals.
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meillo@8
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366 .BU
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meillo@8
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367 Refactor the source code to meet modern style criteria. Use
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meillo@8
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368 standardized library functions when possible.
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meillo@8
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369 .BU
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meillo@8
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370 Replace performance optimizations by clear and readable code.
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meillo@8
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371 .BU
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meillo@8
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372 Reduce the feature set to the commonly used one, removing
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meillo@8
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373 corner-cases. Set sane default values.
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meillo@8
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374 .BU
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meillo@8
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375 Add better attachment support. Add support for digital signatures and
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meillo@8
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376 encryption.
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meillo@8
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377 .BU
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meillo@8
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378 Merge \fLshow\fP and \fLmhshow\fP into one single mail display program.
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meillo@8
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379 Integrate MIME support deeper and more natural into MH.
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meillo@8
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380 .BU
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meillo@8
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381 Provide a ready-to-use setup out-of-the-box.
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meillo@27
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382
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meillo@27
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383
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meillo@27
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384 .H1 "Goals of this Thesis
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meillo@27
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385
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meillo@27
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386 .U2 "Methods
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meillo@27
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387 .P
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meillo@27
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388 foo
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meillo@43
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389 mmh wants to provide a ready-to-use setup for modern emailing,
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meillo@43
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390 which is a necessity to spread among new users.
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